I just returned from a weekend Writer’s Retreat. Nowhere exciting (Roscoe, IL), but the house made for a very comfortable writing atmosphere.
We checked in at 4 p.m. Thursday and left at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
That’s about 86 hours of retreat.
Assuming breaks, meals, sleep, discussion and laughter, that leaves approximately 60 hours to WRITE. (Please note: I usually laugh more than I sleep on these get-aways.)

I wrote 18,958 words.
Nearly 19k!
School Spirit, my most recent publication, a novella, has a word count of 30k!
If I was working on another Kimmie Jillison Mystery, I’d be nearly 2/3 done!

But alas, this one is a full-length novel.
Still, that’s almost 25% of my manuscript.
Or, 317 words per hour.
7600 words per day.
That’s 4.5 times the amount of words recommended daily word count for NaNo.

If I could keep that up…
I’d have a completed first draft in 12 days!

I wish.

But still, great progress.
Writer math don’t lie.

Unless I got the math wrong, in which case, I’M A WRITER NOT A MATHEMATICIAN!
To paraphrase a famous Sci-fi doctor, lol.

~ ~ ~

I was accompanied by two of my most favorite authors:
Debbie Deutsch, who worked on her NEXT BIG PROJECT, having recently published, Lucy in Disguise, a sequel to Throw Away Sisters.
And,
Christine Cacciatore, who has a whole catalog of previously published works, prioritized her writing for the first time in too long by diving into a project that hopefully caught creative fire and will continue to grow.

We are already planning our next retreat…
With luck, determination, focus, and an appeal to the Writer Math gods, hopefully I’ll be editing a full draft by then.